the day austin left home for college...8/21/10

Today i sent my only child off to his new life, and i turned a corner and began anew as well. each day i get a daily OM message in my email. this is the one for today, and as usual, it was appropriate for where i am in my life, in particular on this day.

i had worried that i would go into a total tailspin about this huge change. truly, it is likely the most impacting one on me since i too left to go to college. the summer of my graduation from high school i felt like i had jumped off a cliff in june and had to wait until september to see where i would land. i didn't exactly land unscathed, but i landed and it was a life changing experience.

getting married, having austin, getting a divorce, going back to college. all of these were life mile markers, but it seems to me that i have fulfilled what i was sent to do here, which is to teach austin and to usher him to where he needs to go. as i walked away today, i was actually kind of happy and felt pretty good about it all. i feel like i have fulfilled the mission in a good way. he is a good kid, and i am proud of him and feel confident that his future will be good and he will handle things. i can't say it will be smooth, but i think he has the right stuff to be a good man. i think i helped make that happen, and that was one of the missions of this lifetime.

langston hughes' poem 'MOTHER TO SON" is one of my favorite poems, and i teach it each year. everytime i revisit it, i think about one section in which the narrator states that she has been "reachin' landings, turning corners, and goin' in the dark where there ain't been no light..." that is what i feel like right now. keep climbin'...

i am not sure what the last part of my life will be like. my disease is progressing and getting worse. in actuality, i have been in decline since the botched surgery 4 years ago. this spring, it ramped up and i have had to revisit it and look the goat in the ass as my sainted father would say. i have had to change my approach to managing pain, sleep, diet, and as a result, i am hoping the quality of my life will improve and i will be able to enjoy despite dealing with this crappy body everyday. but i have been lucky to have been able to do what i have done for the last 14 years with this, and i am grateful that i was able to do what i did. i didn't always do it well, but i think seeing austin off today showed me that despite the setbacks and difficulties, i DID raise a good kid, and i think i have raised him to my satisfaction.

where my life goes from here...who knows? there is still potential for new things, interesting things, fun things, despite the uncooperative body! i can do things in a different way, and figuring out how to live my life on a daily basis for ME is going to be a challenge. i have devoted the last 18 years to austin, and i think i have put him first in all cases. now i am almost exactly where i was when i was just a young person out of school...alone with cats and poor! :) but i guess wealth can't be measured just by cats and checking accounts. today i count myself as being a wealthy person.

August 20, 2010

Without a Net

Living Life with Trust

Living life without a net can be just what we need to step outside of ourselves and make the choices we need most.As we create the life of our dreams, we often reach a crossroads where the choices seem to involve the risk of facing the unknown versus the safety and comfort of all that we have come to trust. We may feel like a tightrope walker, carefully teetering along the narrow path to our goals, sometimes feeling that we are doing so without a net. Knowing we have some backup may help us work up the courage to take those first steps, until we are secure in knowing that we have the skills to work without one. But when we live our lives from a place of balance and trust in the universe, we may not see our source of support, but we can know that it is there. If we refuse to act only if we can see the safety net, we may be allowing the net to become a trap as it creates a barrier between us and the freedom to pursue our goals. Change is inherent in life, so even what we have learned to trust can surprise us at any moment. Remove fear from the equation and then, without even wondering what is going on below, we can devote our full attention to the dream that awaits us. We attract support into our lives when we are willing to make those first tentative steps, trusting that the universe will provide exactly what we need. In that process we can decide that whatever comes from our actions is only for our highest and best experience of growth. It may come in the form of a soft landing, an unexpected rescue or an eye-opening experience gleaned only from the process of falling. So rather than allowing our lives to be dictated by fear of the unknown, or trying to avoid falling, we can appreciate that sometimes we experience life fully when we are willing to trust and fall. And in doing so, we may just find that we have the wings to fly. When we believe that there is a reason for everything, we are stepping out with the safety net of the universe, and we know we will make the best from whatever comes our way.

up down up down

up early and on to the hearing aid test. have slight/moderate hearing loss in left ear and have an appt. in july to discuss a hearing aid. i am not vain about having one. i am tired of not being able to hear people and asking them over and over again to repeat themselves. the damage is in the cochlea in the inner ear.

put the boston butt on the smoker before i went to the appt., came back and then out again at 12:30 to see sue fuller. i had a good session, although i was very agitated before i got there. dave hacker called and hadn't heard from austin about playing baseball this weekend at the beach. so we went round and round about getting him to leave early, had finally gotten it all worked out over the course of the day...and then austin got a phone call from karl kuhn stating that he was not to play any baseball this summer. so tonight, after a topsy turvy day of going back and forth over getting him to leave, we now have another upside down situation...no baseball, no tourneys anymore, no atlanta, no charleston. kuhn wants him doing yoga and weight lifting and getting himself and his arm in shape. no ifs, ands, or buts...

gregg has been sick all week, so dinner was postponed. i took half of the bbq and cooked it down using mamama's recipe. tomorrow i will do the rest of it using the gus red recipe. i went to the store today and got the stuff to make cole slaw using the KFC recipe. i was sort of relieved that i didn't have to rush to get the house cleaned or food made. the arguing and angst over the phone gave me a headache, so i ended up taking some tylenol and a nap.

the temps here today were upwards of 103 and with the heat index, even higher. i tried to sit out on the deck under the umbrella and read some of a magazine, but i only lasted about 15/20 minutes. i didn't get anything done off the honey do list today, and i wish i had. sort of feel like i have wasted the day. but my back is bothering me and i have a lot of overall pain and felt sort of listless today. i did clean up the pile of mess in the SF room, but beyond that, nothing significant. i watched a new show tonight called BOSTON MED which is a documentary show about 3 hospitals in boston.

the check engine light went off of the car today...so i am hoping that it was a fluke and there are no problems. i have an 8:15 appt. with the chiro in the morning and i hope to come home and do some things around the house. need to water the plants early. it looked like we were going to have a thunderstorm, but it passed us by with very little rain. we need the rain. haven't had any in well over 10 days...

austin called me back early this evening and he was drunk. he didn't sound drunk, but he told me he was. it was a very weird experience and i am not sure how to react to any of it. he told me that someone had shotgunned him with pot on monday. i was totally disgusted with this and he was remorseful, but swore that he would not be doing anything like this when he got home. he said it was the one time in his life that he would be able to hang out with his friends and party and be wild. i hope that it will be over when he comes back. i still worry. i didn't really worry all that much this week, but there have been stressful moments off and on. haven't talked to him much, only when i had to.

deconstruction-construction-deconstruction

the first week of vacation is always a bit sketchy as i adjust to not having to be somewhere at a certain time or be on a schedule. i can't just drop the life like some of my compadres...i have to transition...which means the honey do list and then frantically doing things to occupy every free moment of my time. it is sort of sick i guess to be that way, but in a way it's good as i do a lot of things that i think about doing the rest of the year.

two trips to home desperado yesterday and i still didn't have the pieces/parts right to make the conversion from 1/2" tubing to l" tubing on the waterfall/pond. there wasn't enough water coming out of the tube, and before i bought another pump, phil t. said change the tubing...and after i did all of the deconstruction and reconstruction of couplers, etc., i probably should have just bought another pump! i used up 20' of one inch tubing, and discovered that the bigger the tubing is, the harder it is to manage. a lot of cussing and straining as i stomped around in the pond stirring up debris and hoping i didn't get bitten by something. in any case, i can report that the switch worked. i can also report that i am not happy with the angle of the waterfall, so i will have to take it all down and start all over. more work, but if you are going to do this, do it the way you want, as it will end up being permanent.

so i have been deconstructing as well. the problem has been landing in one place and finishing what i started. right now there is a pile of debris on the floor next to the computer room, evidence of my not being able to find a bill i was looking for. the end result was going through that area and pitching things. however, i never got back around to picking up the trash. guess that will be part of tomorrow's scenario. and then i left the SF room area and headed to the kitchen to cook. the end result there was i spent about an hour sorting through the tupperware collection that has become so massive that i can't take anything in or out of there without something falling out. i rearranged, selected the stuff i like the best, and the deconstruction evidence is once again evident: all of the discards are in the middle of my kitchen along with my computer chair, a big bag of garbage that needs to go and more stuff on the table. lots of piles and little piles all around the kitchen and the SF room. now i have to organize them.

i cooked a chuck roast, potatoes, onions and carrots for meg and family and chili for colton. i also cooked beets and pickled them. i did a couple of loads of laundry and folded them, as well as folded austin's stuff. i didn't spend too much time with the tv, only watching a BURN NOTICE and a LAW AND ORDER:CRIMINAL INTENT. i talked on the phone to my brother for an hour and joanna todd little called and i talked to her for an extended amount of time as well. i never got around to re potting the plants, again. tomorrow maybe? i have some restrictions on that day. i have a hearing test at the ENT at 8:30 and an appt. with sue fuller at 12:30. i have to make bbq for gregg and family for dinner tomorrow night, and go to the store so i can get the things to make coleslaw. somewhere in there i will have to attend to these deconstruction piles.

i guess my OCD is kicking in seeing as i feel compelled to write down what i spent my day doing just to prove to myself i didn't waste it...

how i spent my tuesday

i have this need to keep moving and make sure that i am not wasting my time. yes, an OCD type of problem, but one not unfamiliar after 23 years of teaching. the first week off is always a bit weird. while i haven't wasted my days, i am having problems relaxing. seems like i should be doing something always.

so what did i do today to make myself seem productive? i took a short bath this morning; i got on the internet and did a lot of stuff like deleting things from my email, researching the driver's ed endorsement at j sarge and calling the SBO to find out if they would pay for it. bottom line: i missed the course chance. it is only offered in the summer and it started monday. guess i will have to wait another year. i cleaned up my room a lot, and unloaded the summer clothes out of the suitcase and put them away. i folded clean clothes, switched clothes around in the closet, which also took time. i also put in a load of laundry to wash. i forgot to eat until after lunch time.

it is miserably hot and humid, too much to do anything outside, so i stayed inside and did things until about 4pm. i went to home depot and bought plastic couplers to try and switch over the tubing on the waterfall. i know i am going to have to tear all of that apart and start again, which is ok. i took library books back to the library and then went to the produce stand and then to the bank to deposit checks in my savings account. i replaced the hose in the back and got rid of the broken hose house that i had tried to repair yesterday. it didn't work, so i disconnected the hose and hooked it directly into the faucet. after watching a couple of law and orders and part of BURN NOTICE, i went back out and tried to fix the tubing, but discovered i needed some couplers to hook the 3/8" nozzle on the heron spitter to the 3/4" tubing from the pump. i got into the pond and checked the filter and realized that it was going to need a coupler as well. i decided to try and make 2 waterfall water sources on the rock since it is pretty wide and i have the rocks. i am not sure that will fly or not, but it might be worth a try. i spent a lot of time in the home depot trying to figure out if i could get things to work. i finally asked for help and the guy there put together a coupler to go from the 3/8" nozzle to the 3/4" tubing. by the time i got home, it was too dark to do anything more than water the plants, both front and back. i came back in and ate some boiled potatoes and cukes and watched some more tv. tonight i watched DEADLIEST CATCH, the one i had been dreading when phil harris has his stroke. i watched AFTER THE CATCH and that was a bit more upbeat.

i did talk to austin, after having listened to lindsey talk and text about his being drunk. it was very bothersome, as i am disappointed in how he appears to be handling himself. i do worry, way too much. today i also went on line and looked at pictures of david s. who was engaged to mary beth's daughter, amy. he died 2 weeks ago, and they found him in the mississippi river in new orleans. i haven't heard how his addiction played into his death, but it seems that it probably did. i haven't had a chance to talk to MB about it, but it just made me think again about how these addictions can change the course of your life. to have austin go from nothing to everything in such a short time is disturbing and does test my faith a lot. but i have to hope that i have raised him right and that he will ultimately do the right thing and learn to moderate his consumption of alcohol.

summer honey-do list for myself

i haven't written on a long time and it is summer now, school is out, austin is graduated and going to UVA in the fall to play baseball and develop a life.

big change in my life, lots of it. i have stopped fighting it for the most part. the last year hasn't been smooth or easy, lots of transitions, lots of odds and ends.

i will write about what has been as best i can as i see time to do it, and will.

each summer i draw up a list for myself of things to do in the summer time. the things range in necessity and need, but for me it just keeps me focused. this summer the major thing to do is my yard and house stuff. i have a waterfall under construction right now and flower beds to make and complete.

Yard stuff: build the waterfall; mortar waterfall; put rocks around the edge; hook up the heron spitter; plant trees(3 japanese maples, 2 yellow maples); put down gravel; till the yard and build the beds by the fence; till the front hill and put down a ground cover; plant the grasses in the beds by the fence; build the smokey cooker patio; fix the outside backyard beds; build little fountains with the trip rocks; clean out under the deck; clean out under the porch; pressure wash the deck; pressure wash the front porch; stain the deck; clean off the deck; take stuff to the dump; go up to amelia and get more rocks;

in the house: clean the refrigerator; paint counter top in the bathroom; clean downstairs bathroom tub out; slip covers for the couches in the living room; put the doorknob back on my closet; reorganize the jewelry area;

personal stuff to do: reorganize my recipes and file them; reorganzie my yard/house ideas file; play my bass and guitar some; read the summer reading books; go to the gym at least 3 times a week; continue to eat healthy; get up before 8:30 each day; write in the blog; consider working on the children's books; work on the 12th grade curriculum; go to see the flying squirrels play; go to see the Nats play in d.c.; go to the horse races; clean up the computer room; get austin's room under some sort of control; clean out my room; hang pictures in the house;

sailing on an even keel into the holidays

this year my christmas foxhole seems to be a little more civilized and i am wearing it like a pair of flannel pjs. it is not wool and itchy. it is smooth and baggy. i get lost in it sometimes, but for the most part it is right now ok.

so what was that all about?

normally, i feel like a soldier on guard in the middle of the night, alone and on alert. i am looking for all possible ways to be invaded and attacked. when things are quiet, i never allow myself to think about anything other than the immediate mission: to stay prepared for the blow. it will come. it is just a matter of time, and a matter of out thinking the enemy.

i guess that is one helluva way to consider your supposed happy holidays and the players in that xmas play, the family. but it is what it is. despite my attempts to rid myself of xmas hopes, i am always somehow disappointed. the best i could ask for would be to approach the holidays from the standpoint of no expectations. that works for me, but it doesn't work for my mother, who invents the mythical family xmas in her head each year. i spend a lot of time trying to make that come true, but i can't control the actions of others. the dry run of this behavior was thanksgiving, where she got upset over something pretty simple dealing with the food. you could just look at the facial expression and then the pout. i recognized the switch very quickly, and then attempted to change the subject and divert. the problem here is that it wasn't anything that i said...and there is the rub. i can't control what austin or uncle jack or daddy said or did. but the effect is the same. she has an attitude switch, and then the awkwardness begins.

this year, she headed out on the same path of we will do this, we will do that. what i hate about it is that it is all so orchestrated and FAKE, or at least seems fake to me. all this stuff about family and being together basically makes my skin crawl. if that were true, there would not be the incidents, the ugly words, the silences, the criticism, the underlying tension. as a family, i think we are quite fractured. i can't stay in that environment for an extended period of time, so i come home and go to the davis' xmas dinner and then return. too much togetherness makes me insane, especially when i don't want to be in that situation. it is several days of being on foxhole alert, knowing that the invasion is imminent.

so right now i am trying to enjoy simple pleasures. i have been writing about them on facebook. things that are small and make me happy. i am trying to circle around those, utilize them, take small moments of pleasure and use them to bolster my resolve to get through the holidays. this year i have let go of a lot of things, mostly the desire to get everything right for my mother. i realize now i just can't do it. the first thing on the list of problems has been with lindsey coming down to the beach during this time. austin had envisioned her coming down there for several days. my mother has an attitude both about lindsey and about lindsey being an outsider invading the xmas expectations/vision that she has. the vision is NOT inclusive. the only players allowed in the play are the ones she wants, and she has all of the roles picked out. lindsey is an unknown, and a stress in my mother's mind, for last year we had amy and despite the fact that i thought things went ok, it stressed out my mother because she felt responsible for amy's happiness and spent too much time (in her opinion) watching amy and feeling responsible for her happiness. this was not a good thing for mom, because she only wanted to concentrate on making her vision come true. amy, while quiet and unobtrusive (in my opinion), was a huge distraction apparently to my mother. she mentioned having to work to talk to her and then amy having a stomach issue. the irony is that i didn't see it that way, but the lesson for me is that IT DOESN'T MATTER WHETHER OR NOT IT WAS TRUE OR JUSTIFIED. it is what my mother walked away with, and subsequently it colored her vision of what she wanted this year.

the problem just continues with me. each year i try to anticipate what she wants, and that in turn causes me to be totally stressed out. i just can't anticipate it. i should just let it go, but i can't and in a way, that makes me just as bad as my mother. i, too, have a vision...which is NO vision. i would just like to have things fall where they may. i don't have to have everyone participate, although it is hard not to do that. i just like it to be quiet, sort of. and i guess i have to admit that i look at xmas as the time to see if i am valued. if it is based upon presents and things like that, i am ranking pretty low. apparently, the perception is that this is no big deal. it just goes to show you how each person approaches xmas with a different type of expectation. i have to say that for many years i appreciated the gifts that doris gave me. she was the only one, in my opinion, who took the time to think about what i would want, or to find something that she thought i would be interested in. that was because she paid attention when i wasn't paying attention. i don't truthfully have anyone now that i know is paying any attention to me or what i like or want. consequently, i end up feeling a lot un-special. this is the heart of my xmas dreariness. with doris gone, no husband, and a male child who is like his father, that eliminates that. plus, add in my mother, who last year declared they would not being gifts, and there you have it...the ultimate visual that the parents don't have a clue that this might be important to me. my mother pretty much has never given much thought to me or my feelings. for the most part, i embarrass her because i do have emotions. but she has spent my lifetime pretty much making me pay for that ability.

into the fray enters lindsey, who is the opposite of amy and a whole different set of issues. mom immediately said no overnight with lindsey. just to show you how different we are, i didn't remember any of the things that stuck in my mother's mind about amy's visit last year, not the least of it being that i didn't remember she spent the night. my mother did. so when they were up here last week for austin's basketball game against hanover, my mother immediately started with there will be no interlopers in the xmas vision this year. i told her that austin had thought he was going to bring lindsey down for at least overnight, and mom said now. she actually pouted, even with the facial expressions and vocals and lower lip stuck out. i told her i would handle it, no small feat. mom seems to think lindsey or me are the source of problems that austin has, especially lindsey. so naturally, lindsey would be the target in the xmas pageant. so i told austin she was only down for the day. he wasn't getting it, which i guess is fortunate, in that i didn't want him to know that she doesn't really like lindsey (while all the while saying she does, but she doesn't.) i am not sure if she would like anyone...which is one reason i kept my friends from her. she is quick with the critical, nasty comment out of left field. she can hone in on things that you never saw, and she is not forgiving, nor is she forgetting.
in any case, i told her i had handled it all...i would bring lindsey for the day. but then she started obsessing over the break in the plans and began with the "her coming has spoiled everything" overture/unspoken thing. i was somewhat exasperated, because i got it down to her coming for a day, but mom wasn't having it. nothing was going easily in this case, so i just said she would have to make a switch. have the boys make the lasagna on tuesday and serve it for lunch on wednesday. she couldn't get off the spoiling it thing (her vision of what the boys, who could give a shit, would be doing...they must do their traditional shopping, make the lasagna, and whatever my sainted brother was planning). i spoke with my dad, finally, at the end of the conversation and told him he needed to get her in a place where compromise was a virtue. he didn't say much, but he knows what i am talking about. he certainly lives with it and has for over 50 years. in any case, a few hours later she called, repentant of sorts, to say she had changed her mind. unfortunately, for me, a stressful moment: austin was sitting next to me at the pad thai place for lunch, and had just been chortling about how he would wear down the grandmother so she would let lindsey come down. he grabbed the phone out of my hand, and that actually was what she was calling to tell me. she had had a change of heart. i wonder what my father said or did, if anything, but in any case she has been a bit sheepish about the retraction, but she did retract the dictum, so lindsey is now going overnight. i have told my mother i would handle lindsey and she would not have to be stuck with her or entertain her by herself (this happened recently when austin took lindsey to the beach to visit them.)

of course, this now puts the problem of lindsey on me, which means i am going to have to brief her before the battle, and at least ATTEMPT to get her to tone down her act. austin will also need to do that, and of course, the stress now gets to extend to another generation. i am once again thankful that i have the davis dinner to escape to. i have used it the last several years to give me a break from family togetherness.

at this point, at least i know what my role is going to be in the family fractured fairytale. my hope is that nothing else crops up that i will have to manage. i am not feeling like i want to manage anything, as exhibited by my complete lack of interest in doing anything for xmas that smacks of organization. i got my lights up outside courtesy of the kids. i have played my xmas music. i got a tree and put it up and it has lights on it, but so far no decorations. i will get to those when i get motivated. today i am hoping to do a dry run on the ravioli i want to make as xmas presents. i haven't put xmas stuff up in the house yet, but i will when i feel like it. i am enjoying things piecemeal, like my xmas socks and outfits. i haven't added anything this year, which is a good thing i think.

so, now i have written down the tentative script for this years play. let the festivities/rehearsals begin...

simple pleasures

i keep thinking of these things, and then i forget to write them down. so now i have decided to try and just list them here, and when i need one, i will know where to go to remind myself what i can do to make a happy moment.

wood smoke
the smell of pine and xmas things
the birds at the bird feeder
xmas cactii blooming
snipping fresh herbs from the plants
stroking olivia's fur
cat's up on the bed
a good cup of tea sitting on the deck in the morning
a good cup of coffee in a rainy, cold day
xm radio
the DECEMBER album by george winston
xmas music until it is no longer fun!
playing my guitar
sinking down into my bed and laying there
the feel of good carpeting on my feet
good bbq
good bbq ribs
someone rubbing my back and shoulders
someone rubbing my feet
cocoa butter on my feet
a bath with my special bath salt and smells
someone rubbing my head
the day that green grass shoots come up in spring
a full moon
PEEPER FROGS IN SPRING
sitting on my swing and listening to the waterfall
playing crazy 8's with bebo, nick, jean, rob, meg, mike and amy and laughing my ass off
watching happy old movies
40's swing music on xm\
the window opened a bit all year round
good incense
a lava lamp
looking at fish in a tank at night
good fried shrimp
a good hot dog
standing outside at night in the snow
A SNOW DAY!!!
my happy friday shoes
playing with the cats with the laser pointer
kittens
making a good piece of jewelry
seattle, san francisco, albuquerque/santa fe...not so simple, but so relaxing!
homemade macaroni and cheese
a hug